Monsoon Mansion

Told with a lyrical, almost-dreamlike voice as intoxicating as the moonflowers and orchids that inhabit this world, Monsoon Mansion is a harrowing yet triumphant coming-of-age memoir exploring the dark, troubled waters of a family’s rise and fall from grace in the Philippines. It would take a young warrior to survive it.

Cinelle Barnes was barely three years old when her family moved into Mansion Royale, a stately ten-bedroom home in the Philippines. Filled with her mother’s opulent social aspirations and the gloriously excessive evidence of her father’s self-made success, it was a girl’s storybook playland. But when a monsoon hits, her father leaves, and her mother’s terrible lover takes the reins, Cinelle’s fantastical childhood turns toward tyranny she could never have imagined. Formerly a home worthy of magazines and lavish parties, Mansion Royale becomes a dangerous shell of the splendid palace it had once been.

In this remarkable ode to survival, Cinelle creates something magical out of her truth—underscored by her complicated relationship with her mother. Through a tangle of tragedy and betrayal emerges a revelatory journey of perseverance and strength, of grit and beauty, and of coming to terms with the price of family—and what it takes to grow up.

Spus cu o voce lirica, aproape onirica, la fel de imbatatoare ca florile de luna si orhideele care locuiesc in aceasta lume, Monsoon Mansion este un memoriu ingrozitor, dar triumfator, de varsta, care exploreaza apele intunecate si tulburate ale ascensiunii si caderii unei familii din gratie in Filipine. Un tanar razboinic ar fi trebuit sa supravietuiasca.Cinelle Barnes avea doar trei ani cand familia ei s-a mutat in Mansion Royale, o casa impunatoare cu zece dormitoare din Filipine.